How to Quiet the Voice of Doubt
Climbing out of the hell made by our own minds
Welcome to the latest entry in The Workaround. You’re in good company with thousands of fellow entrepreneurs and innovators!
I’m Bob, your host. My mission here is to share personal, behind-the-scenes stories of the ups and downs of my career leading tech startups and corporate innovation.
I write to make you think, smile, and discover a shortcut to success or a trap to avoid.
Here we go…
People sometimes ask me what lies behind my high career risk tolerance. I don’t think it’s in my genes. My parents weren’t entrepreneurs, and I never had mentors who guided me in this direction. I’ve also had a lot of failures in my ventures, and they haven’t stopped me from getting back on the horse.
If there’s any difference in my mental programming, it’s that I think there’s a lot less risk than most people believe there is. But I’ve had to do some self-hacking to get my head in the right place.
Risk is really just another word for fear, and the farther I go in life, the more I see fear as the source of so much pain and limitation. Most people worry too much, and those worries can prevent them from pursuing a better life. And sometimes, these fears make life a living hell.
My choice of writing topics here is mainly driven by conversations I have with people who are struggling with something in their work lives. When I sit down to write, I reflect on my past week and recall these meaningful conversations. I know that others are likely struggling with the same issues. Sometimes, these conversations get pretty deep and demand a deep post like this.
These conversations turn inward repeatedly as my friends and I recognize that our minds are the biggest barrier to our business success and life's happiness. I’m sure you’ve been there. Maybe this story and suggestions will help.
There’s this voice in my head…
It’s Friday, and I’m walking down the street to meet Whitney, a woman I first worked with over twenty years ago when we were both early-career kids working at a big company. We meet every couple of years to catch up and ask each other for advice on our current projects.
A few months ago, Whitney wanted to get my take on her next work chapter. After five years of doing high-intensity work for a high-growth, billion-dollar global software firm, she hit a wall and decided to leave. After a few months of recovery, she saw three paths ahead: Take a similar job at another firm, shift into a fractional consulting role, or launch a software startup around an idea that touches on a personal issue she faced.
Back then, I did my best to offer some pros and cons on all of the options. Since then, I’ve been eager to learn her decision. Today, she’s going to share her answer.
I cruise into the cool new coffee shop in town and run into Whitney at the counter. We share small-talk greetings, grab our mugs, and find a table. Before our first sips, she announces:
“I’ve got to follow this startup idea. I care about it and know it can help many people. I think I can get to the first version without spending much money. The only problem is that this voice in my head says I’m not good enough to do a software startup.”
I stop Whitney right there and tell her she must ignore that voice.
How many times in our lives have we encountered this “little voice”? Oh, so many times.
But how many times do we question these voices? Almost never.
Seriously—stop and consider for a moment how screwed up it is to have a voice in your head. What is this? Who invited it in? And why is it saying mostly negative stuff? We talk about the “no asshole rule” in the workplace—but what about this asshole that’s been let loose in our own brains?!
I tell Whitney: That voice is separate. It might reside in her mind, but it’s not her.
It’s a lesson that goes back to ancient thinkers of Buddhism and Stoicism, and now modern science is shedding new light on the process. But we’re mostly on our own in figuring this stuff out. I’ve read dozens of books on the topic, so let me offer a starting point…
Explaining the Voices
My favorite science-based explanation of what’s happening comes from the book Consciousness and the Brain. Author and brain scientist Stanislas Hehaene describes how a vast system of the unconscious continually operates in the background. It samples our senses, taps into our memories, and uses rules that have evolved through millions of years of natural selection.
When enough of these unconscious processes and multiple brain regions “agree” about something, a thought is born and enters our consciousness. Language is the medium of thought transfer, so we “hear” a voice that suggests an action or makes a judgment.
I prefer an alternative framework in the book Your Symphony of Selves: Our minds are comprised of multiple “selves” distinct from our core, waking consciousness. These voices compete for our attention and hope to drive our decisions.
And they take many forms. Everyone is familiar with the Angel and Devil on our shoulders. The Time Keeper voice constantly watches the clock so we’re not late. The Competitor voice activates when playing a game or rooting for our team. The Party Animal is the one that convinces you to take one drink too many and often seems to win out over The Moderator, who reminds you that a hangover is likely. I’m sure you could come up with dozens of voices that regularly pop up in your mind throughout the day.
Call them shards of consciousness, machine elves, midi-chlorians—whatever. They nudge us to finish our to-do list, watch for cars when crossing the street, and remind us that a half-gallon of ice cream is waiting in the freezer.
And none have a larger share of voice in our minds than those of Fear.
Fears of all kinds fill our heads because of natural selection—the process by which genes are passed through the creatures that stay alive the longest. For 99.9999% of our ancestors’ history, there were 99,999 ways to die on a given day. We are the end product of many voices warning about the lions at the watering hole and reminding us to store enough food for the winter.
Of course, even in those bad old days, most worries were unfounded. But our genes don’t care if we get annoyed. They exist to keep us alive, not maximize our happiness or sense of purpose. Alive and unhappy beats happy and dead.
(Side note: Have you ever noticed that the good things that happened or might happen don’t pop into your mind like the worries and fears do? Have you ever been unable to sleep at night because you couldn’t stop thinking about how GREAT your last vacation was? Thanks, natural selection!)
The issue of modern living is that we exist in a remarkably safe world—yet we are stuck with old, fear-based programming. Our conscious minds want to pursue happiness, and we have tremendous freedom and resources to do so. But we stop ourselves from advancing.
And on Friday morning in the coffee shop, Whitney’s voice is like the worst friend in the world—telling her she’s not good enough to start a company. The negative voices can turn our wonderful world into a living hell—all within our own minds!
Managing the Voices
You could spend a lifetime working on quelling the voices and seeking pure enlightenment. But you’re not a monk. There are bills to pay, children to raise, and decisions to make. So here’s what I’ve found to be a good starting point for managing those ever-present negative voices:
See what they are - The first key to change is recognizing what’s happening. You read the above, so now you know. Again, this is just an evolutionary reaction that’s no different than shivering when it’s cold or sweating when it’s hot. Those thoughts are not the real you! If you want to go deeper on the topic, I’d highly recommend the teaching of Eckhart Tolle in handy YouTube or book form.
Accept them - This is another one of those keys to life. Think of the voices as a cloud passing above you or a noisy truck rolling by on the street. You can’t control them. They just, well, are. Watch and listen to them pass without judgment. Don’t hate them—remember they are just old programming aimed at saving your life. And don’t fight them; the more you resist negative thoughts, the sticker they get. Thought against thought is like stirring a hornet’s nest.
Take them under advisement - Maybe the voices have a point this time. Reflect on why the thoughts might come up. Is there real truth or just natural fear? Then, do some conscious analysis. In Whitney’s case, she might list some pros and cons and come up with a worst-case scenario. For example, is she OK working on this for six months without a salary? If so, then that voice can go away.
Go for it - You’ve done the work to look at the upsides and downsides, and your heart—which is where the real you exists—still wants to take the leap. Well, then you have to do it. Thank the voices for their concern and move forward. You might fail, or you might succeed. Either way, you will have moved yourself to a higher level in the game of life.
These four little steps sound easy, but you’ll keep hearing and stressing about the little voices. Remember, you’re going up against millions of years of evolution—and they’ve been chatting away for your entire life! Take some deep breaths, wave at the voices, and begin again.
You’ll probably start noticing these thoughts as independent from “you,” which might interest you more in developing this skill. From here, there are so many exciting rabbit holes to explore in the quest to hack your mental programming for the better. There’s meditation, therapy, silent retreats, GLP drugs that quiet cravings, dopamine fasting, and psychedelic ego resets. All are best explored with professional supervision.
Discover Your True Self
Trust me, even the most basic practice of noticing your little voices works wonders. With effort, they will lessen, you will make better decisions, and happiness will be easier to achieve in each moment.
As an example of what this can mean, reflect on a recent time when you were engrossed in a work project or hobby. Usually, it’s when you are doing something that is meaningful to you—that perfect intersection of interest and skill. Maybe that’s programming software, building a business plan, or writing an article. The voices disappear when you’re in the zone, the work flows through you, and time has no meaning. This is the real you in its purest form. Go find that.
Finally, when a friend says they’ve got that little negative voice rattling around in their head, stop and give them a helping hand. Seeing barriers in others is often easier, and we listen to friends’ advice more readily. In other words, we need each other’s help to improve our selves.
How we might work together…
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BONUS: Cool Content of the Week
A little something I found meaningful. You might agree…
What's Wrong With Bryan Johnson?
With my pinky toe in the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem, I frequently hear rapid excitement around the story of former founder Bryan Johnson’s obsession with cheating death. After becoming a multi-millionaire through startup founding and investing, Johnson (46) is now all-in on avoiding the ultimate exit. His regime includes:
“He takes 111 nutritional supplements a day, wears a hat that shoots laser beams at his head to rejuvenate his cells, he eats dinner at 11:30 a.m. (yes, in the morning), and goes to bed with a penile device, which monitors his nighttime erections.”
I’m happy Johnson is keeping busy, and obviously, he’s free to do whatever he likes with his time and money. But his story, and the tech-bro cheerleading around it, should remind us that making fast money in tech doesn’t necessarily correlate with gaining wisdom about life—and the former might distract from the latter.
Sherry Ning makes points in this post that need to be said: (1) By obsessing with a future life, we ignore the present—in other words, counting calories takes away from counting our blessings and enjoying life; (2) Aging is a feature of life, not a bug—it’s an opportunity to experience and learn new things. Facing death is part of the ride; its inevitability reminds us to maximize the enjoyment of the present, and at some point, we should hand the baton to the next generation.
P.S.: To tie this content together with the main point of my post, check out this story of a former body hacker who shifted into mind hacking.